Rodney Flagg sat under a lamp at the front of his bait and tackle shop tying up a batch of Winnie Squid flies. Every so often, the front door squeaked open and a fisherman walked in.
“That time of year!” one told Flagg, 79. The angler would be back today at 5 a.m. to pick up some shiners.
Flagg, who lives about 20 feet from his store, Flagg’s Fly & Tackle in Orange, said he will be up at 4 a.m. today — the day fishing gates open at the Quabbin Reservoir. Today, anglers from all over will cast their lines in a sure sign that, finally, spring is here.
“I’ll probably get out here at 4 o’clock and there will already be boats sitting out in the yard waiting for bait,” Flagg said.
Fishing season in the Quabbin starts today at 5 a.m. Shore fishing will begin and three boat ramps will be accessible: Gate 8 in Belchertown, Gate 31 in New Salem and Gate 43 in Hardwick.
After today, the boat ramps will open each morning at 6, every day until Oct. 14, when the season ends.
Down the road from Flagg in New Salem, Rick Oliver, owner of the New Salem General Store, said he sees an uptick in activity around this time every year.
“I’ve had a few guys in this morning looking for worms,” Oliver said. “You could call it a rite of spring. The Quabbin opens up. Stocking trucks are out. It’s a good sign.”
The reservoir sustains 27 species of fish — 17 of which are sought by anglers — according to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.
In the spring, the most prolific fish are lake trout, land-locked salmon, small-mouth bass and white perch, according to DCR. This past week, the state also stocked the waters with 5,000 rainbow trout.
At Gate 8 Thursday morning, state workers stood beside a Mass Wildlife Ford flatbed with metal tanks carrying 1,600 rainbow trout. The trout were 18 months old, raised on food pellets at the McLaughlin Fish Hatchery in Belchertown.
A reality check came on Thursday: no longer would they be able to survive on the creature comforts at the hatchery.
Come Saturday, the fish that had become accustomed to pellets will be hungry, said DCR Ranger Dawn Metcalf.
“They’ll be very hungry for a while,” she said. “We’ll have people lining the shores giving them something to eat.”
On April 13, when the workers were stocking the reservoir, perhaps the most unlucky fish were scooped up in nets by a worker and plopped into 5-gallon buckets three or four at time. A line of Shutesbury elementary schoolers in rain boots snaked away from the truck along the gravel, each of them waiting their turn to release a few fish into the shallows.
Some kids were easy on the fish, guiding them gently into the reservoir. Some tried unsuccessfully to wrangle the slimy creatures to put them in the water one-by-one. Other kids just dumped their buckets.
The last of the fish were blasted into the reservoir when workers lifted a chute and the remaining water and fish were funneled into the reservoir.
When the fish touched the water, a torpor washed over them because of the temperature change. They vacillated slowly in the clear water, not straying too far from shore.
Four miles to the south of Gate 8, in Belchertown, Richard “Grizz” Zolla and Ken Savoir, two bow technicians at R&R Sport Shop, were working behind the counter.
“There will be a line,” Savoir said of today’s expected crowds along the roadways, adding that the store will also be open at 5 a.m.
“People will be there very early, way before the gates even open, just trying to get a spot.
“I will not be able to get out Saturday, to my dismay,” Savoir said, delivering a playful jab to Zolla, who is taking the day off.
“How many days a week did you have to go deer hunting?” Zolla asked.
“I know,” Savoir said, “I had to get that in there.”
“That’s twice you’ve said it,” Zolla said, laughing.
Savoir said the Quabbin boasts healthy populations of land-locked salmon and lake trout, some of the only populations around.
“The salmon are going to be the hardest fighters,” Savoir said. “A lot of the time you see the salmon coming out of the water.”
“If you got a fish that hits your line, starts ripping line out, 10-to-1 it’s a salmon, of the three,” Savoir said of lake trout, rainbow trout and salmon.
“Salmon will go airborne,” said Zolla, who said he sells his Grizz-brand tackle in 40 stores.
Zolla said a misconception about lake trout is that they don’t put up a fight. They do, he said, when hooked in shallow water.
“If you catch ’em in the shallows, they’ll fight like a freight train,” Zolla said. “It’s a savage hit — starts peeling out line; it’s like you’ve got a VW running on the end of the line. It’s just going, going, going, going, going.”
“The difference between lakers and salmon is that a salmon are going to make longer, deeper runs — more powerful runs; then they’ll also go airborne,” Zolla said.
Back in Orange, Flagg was making small talk with another fisherman, Bruce Young, 44, of Montague Center.
“It’s gonna be a zoo the first day,” Flagg told Young. “It always is.”
“It always is,” Young repeated, as he laid down two smelt pattern flies he is going to use to try and hook some salmon.